Why Should You Add Antioxidants to Your Diet?

When free radicals attack and damage our body’s cells, they cause oxidant reactions. Consequently, these reactions lead to a range of disorders, chronic diseases and ageing.

Fortunately, as long as you can set the balance between the free radicals and antioxidants inside your body, you can slow down this progress.

How Do Antioxidants Work?

Free Radicals are highly reactive unstable atoms. If they overwhelm the body’s ability to regulate, they start to attack the cell. According to the Free-radical theory of aging, these highly reactive oxygen species (ROS), damage the DNA, proteins and other cellular structures like the cell membranes and cell organelles. These atoms are also related to many disorder and chronic diseases such as cancer, arthritis, atherosclerosis, Alzheimer’s and diabetes and inflammatory conditions.

On the other hand, antioxidants can removes dangerous molecules like free radicals from the body and slow down or block continuous damages caused by oxidation directly or indirectly. Thus, they slow down ageing and prevent ageing-related disease. Besides, they can prevent hair loss and retain the beauty of hair.

Sources of Antioxidants

There are many sources of antioxidants from food, vitamin, food supplement etc. Our body get benefit of taking enough antioxidants supplement. However, it is important to remember excessive amount of antioxidants might cause bad effects.

Phytonutrient-bearing foods is the source of Polyphenol antioxidants which is a type of antioxidants containing a polyphenolic substructure. They can be found in most of the legumes; fruits like apples, blackberries, cantaloupe, cherries, cranberries, grapes, pears, plums, raspberries, and strawberries; vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, celery, onion and parsley. You can use antioxidants food supplements like tablets or capsules daily for convenience.

The intake of vitamin, especially vitamin A, E and C can also produce antioxidants. There are two sources of vitamin A. One source comes from animal including retinol, this can be found in animal foods such as eggs, liver, whole milk and fortified foods like fat-reduced milk, cereals and breads. Another source comes from fruits and vegetables (especially dark green leafy ones), spinach, cantaloupe, carrots, sweet potatoes and squash.

Vitamin C is considered as natural antioxidants, it plays important role to retain your hair. They are often found in citrus fruits, kiwi, pineapple, tomatoes, green peppers, potatoes with their skins and dark green vegetables. It is recommended to take about 60mg vitamin C per day.

Vitamin E is also critical for hair growth. They can be found in wheat germ oil, soybeans, raw seeds and nuts, dried beans and leafy green vegetables. You should take 400 IU per day for perfect health.